HOWTO: make amarok work!

DieselPower · Apprentice Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 216 Location: TN

After 2 months without amarok on four different machines I finaly got it working. These instructions should fix all the problems I have seen reported. If someone finds something else that needs to bo done for a specific problem, post it and I'll add it to this howto. Playlist scanning does work reliably with these package versions. The package versions are just what I have. Any newer versions "should" work too

1
Make sure your arts sound server is working. arts-3.5.0 does not seem to work, but arts-3.5.1 does.

2
emerge sys-libs/glibc-2.3.5-r2
emerge media-libs/taglib-1.4
emerge media-libs/libid3tag-0.15.1b
emerge media-libs/tunepimp-0.3.0-r1
emerge media-libs/gstreamer-0.8.11
emerge media-sound/amarok-1.3.8

About amarok use flags:

DO use "debug"
DO NOT use "musicbrainz"

Here are my use flags for amarok
+arts +debug -flac +gstreamer +kde +mp3 -musicbrainz -mysql -noamazon +opengl -postgres +visualization +vorbis -xine -xinerama +xmms

3
Remove ALL amarok configuration files. (back up your covers etc. first. If you deleted it and it's gone, don't blame me!)
rm -rf ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok
rm -rf ~/.kde/share/config/amarokrc

4
Start amarok and enjoy!!!

If it still does not work, try "amarok --engine alsa". But beware that it does not play *.wav files using the alsa engine.

5
Last but not least! Please help me improve this howto if you feel it's worthy of staying on the gentoo forums!
I still cannot get the visualizations to work. We'll see what comes in the next release!

massysett · Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 3:29 am Post subject:

No wonder you couldn't get amarok to work: you're using arts!

Seriously, the amarok wiki warns time and again not to use arts--really this should be mentioned in the program itself, but isn't. arts is widely derided in KDE, and the arts backend is not maintained at all.

So my biggest tip would be: avoid arts! Then it doesn't matter what arts version you have, or even if you have arts installed at all! I think gstreamer and xine are both really good audio back ends, and both will output straight to alsa. I had a problem with stuttering podcasts with gstreamer, so now I use xine--no problems at all.

So let's say you use xine...xine has USE flags for mad and vorbis; flip these USE flags on for MP3 and ogg playback, respectively. There's also a flac USE flag. And of course turn on the xine USE flag for amarok. I've never had problems with musicbrainz, which I have enabled.

But as for arts: avoid, avoid, avoid!! I tried using arts with amarok on SUSE, and amarok crashed at least three times an hour! Stay away from arts!
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DieselPower · Apprentice Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 216 Location: TN

OK

I personaly only use arts for the kde system notifications only. Three of my computers use the Gstreamer engine for amarok, but one of them has problems with gstreamer so I use arts on it until I have time to fix it. I will add that amarok runs for days on end just fine with arts! That's the only reason I put the arts thing in there but maybe I should pull it out.

I wrote this howto because so many people can't get amarok working, and this info is so spread out that it takes a while to find.

vicaya · n00b Joined: 26 Jun 2004 Posts: 57

Put the following in your /etc/portage/package.use:

Teetante · Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2006 6:47 pm Post subject:

Yes, gstreamer engine for amarok is not complete, it just kinda works. Use xine for stable and full-featured playback.
And arts is just a curse, get rid of it as soon as possible

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Ateo · Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2006 6:48 pm Post subject:

Gstreamer? Yuk. Try amarok with xine as the engine..

Also, get rid of arts for system sounds. Use alsaplayer...

Seriously.. Arts is horrible. It's not wonder Arts goes by by with kde 4.

Fleta · n00b Joined: 12 Dec 2004 Posts: 68

My amarok is using arts engine, it works just fine.

massysett · Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2006 7:35 pm Post subject:

Ateo · Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2006 8:16 pm Post subject:

MADcow · Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2006 7:20 am Post subject:

anyone got FLAC working with the xine engine? ^-^
EDIT: updated to amarok-svn and it.. uh.. works again...
whatever.

DieselPower · Apprentice Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 216 Location: TN

I guess I'm just a lucky one too. Arts has always worked perfectly for me, for about 7 years I think. The only thing is it seems to use a little more cpu than some of the others.

John-Boy · Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 6:50 pm Post subject:

Why no musicbrainz ? Arts worked fine over here, until sometime last year, just upped and died on me.
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